People always ask me, “Max, do I need to unroot to take OTA?” Well, the answer is yes and no.

If you are rooted, there’s usually rooted OTA custom ROMs you can flash in ClockworkMod Recovery (usually within 24 hours) of the update, which allows you to easily update to the OTA and keep root, settings, and apps.

So, here’s Jelly Bean rooted ROM 4.1.1 for all Galaxy Nexus variants including GSM, Sprint, or Verizon. And if you ask me which version of Galaxy Nexus you have, you either have Sprint or Verizon. If you don’t have Sprint or Verizon, it’s a GSM Galaxy Nexus you have.

The new Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1 comes with minor changes which involve mostly with responsiveness and more speed. I did see just a “tag” bit of lag in the original Jelly Bean but it seems all of that is completely “zappped” with this new update.

For those of you on Jelly Bean already, no need to wipe, just install ROM over it and you should be all good to go. For those of you on ICS or any other custom ROM, please do wipe.

Galaxy Nexus Reference
You will need a rooted Galaxy Nexus to install all ROM/kernels.NOTE: PLEASE ONLY INSTALL ROMS INTENDED FOR YOUR VERSION OF GALAXY Nexus! Otherwise you WILL BRICK YOUR PHONE and I will not be responsible!How to Root GalaxyNexus!

i updated to 4.1.1 but still my phone gives me that annoying notification of 4.1 jellybean system update. in the settings it is on 4.1.1 JRO03C. does anyone know how to get rid of that notification. it is really annoying please help

i just restored to the first nandroid backup i did after rooting my gnex, made an su backup using voodoo OTA rootkeeper and checked ota survival in the superuser app (just to be sure) then checked for ota updates in settings… then BAM! updated to 4.1.1 and kept root 🙂
i had the latest cwm touch recovery 6.0.0.5 not sure if that made a difference but worked for my GSM gnex.

just restored to the first nandroid backup i did after rooting my gnex, made an su backup using voodoo OTA rootkeeper and checked ota survival in the superuser app (just to be sure) then checked for ota updates in settings… then BAM! updated to 4.1.1 and kept root 🙂
i had the latest cwm touch recovery 6.0.0.5 not sure if that made a difference but worked for my GSM gnex.

Hey Max, sorry to ask but will the update wipe my phone? I have the rooted 4.1 version and I want to get 4.1.1 but just flashing it will keep everything as is or do I need to do all the backups and install everything again? Thanks!

Thanks for the update Max–great work! Just flashed and found a couple of things worth mentioning. 1. Just like Jellin 4.1 RC3, Google Voice search is not functional on first start up. Steps to get it working: goto menu-settings-Languate&input-Voice Search and in the options choose download offline speech recognition. There will be two tabs, installed and all, choose all and choose English. 2. For some reason, Maps, Navigation, and Currents aren’t included in the Google App File for Sprint–easily remedied with a quick download from the Play Store. 3. Everything is working great–even got the Sprint carrier label back! Download this update and flash now.

Thanks so much for all your help, this site is great. Just installed this ROM. But how long should the first boot take? It has been showing me the boot screen for a while now and I’m starting to worry.

Hi max I have a problem with the Jelly Bean Update. I have the sprint galaxy nexus and with the rom jelly bean 4.1.1and i do receive multimedia messages, but it wont download to see the picture that my friend sent me. Any solution? Thanks Max your Awesome.

I put the phone into airplane mode and can’t connect anymore to Sprint 3G after turning off airplane mode–and no number of reboots has accomplished anything…I get a couple bars of roaming but no data behind it. Anyone else having this problem? I will try restoring to one of my backups since that’s kind of a show-stopper. Sprint isn’t having any scheduled maintenance in my area either.

Also, if I power down the phone with the charger cable connected, I can’t turn the phone back on until I pull out the battery and disconnect the charger cable…kind of annoying. The charging light never goes off when I pull out the charger cable.

Thanks Max,
I am a somewhat novice user, but took the plunge and I love JB!! Just like a brand new phone! All my Apps seem to work well even the specialized ones like DejaOffice, so for all you that were afraid to jump in ..
The only issue I am having I suspect is with the ADB driver on my PC as synching has issues. Pictures taken with the camera show up in the phone Gallery, but when downloading with Win XP Scanner and Camera pop up wizard, none of the photos shot after the JB upgrade show up in the preview box to be selected. I can use Win Explorer and see they are there, but can not preview for some reason. I can also no longer synch my contacts via USB.

Great site and advice…loving JB on my nexus, however I have one question?
I previously used the liquid ROM and loved the integrated smart dialler, do you know of a smart dialler that I can flash onto the JB rom?

Hey Max, I’ve finally decided to upgrade my GN from 4.0.4 to 4.1.1. What I don’t understand is what is the use of the “Busy Box”. It is one of the files in the ZIP. I own a GSM version. Thank you so much! Keep up the good work!

Hi,
As a follow-up to the photo issue, you can view the new and the old photos in the Android Gallery on the phone, but when down loading them to a computer, the new photos shot with JB OS do not show up. If you use Windows Explorer on your PC to view the contents of the GN phone: DCMI\Camera you can see the new pictures as icons but can not see the actual Thumbnails of the earlier pictures but the new ones show a default icom. When looking at the properties of these new pictures, the naming appears correct and they end in a .jpg format, so a little puzzuling why the can not be downloaded. Like to figure out what is going on as it also might be something in the PC driver that is causing this issue.

For Johnny that is looking for a smart dialer, I am using the Dialer One app which works well with JB. It offers Quick dial keys as welll as alot of customization.

I just flashed this last night after rooting my phone. everything works great except for one thing. I have no camera or gallery app. If i tried to unlock directly to the camera it just locked up briefly and didnt go anywhere. I know the camera improvements was one of the biggest updates in JB so im not sure why this rom wouldnt have it. I know the camera works because the Facebook camera utility works fine.

I’ve been using it the past few days now and found a 2 glitches. Your probably aware of them, but ill bring them up just in case. I’m not sure if this is your ROM?… or someone you know, but if your into fixing them these are the errors I found on the CDMA Verizon Jelly Bean 4.1.1 rom.

-When receiving a notification while playing music the volume lowers and does not return to its previous stage.
-The signal bar says that you are roaming (a lot).

hi i have two problems after installing the ROM maybe you can help me
first, i can’t restore only the data from the clockworkmod recovery it says MD5 mismach
second, i have no folders when i’m connecting the phone to the computer such as DCIM music and stuff so i cant put back the pictures i saved before tnx for the help

Did you rename the backup folder with spaces or weird characters? Try renaming it without spaces and weird characters if you did, that will solve the MD5 mismatch problem and let you restore your ROM normally again.

After flashing to 4.1.1 my WiFi tether no longer works. I can still connect my phone to WiFi networks however I’m not able to use it as a mobile WiFi hotspot thru WiFi tether. Any suggestions ? I’ve re-flashed the ROM and still nothing.

After flashing 4.1.1, the voice input on google now just keeps listening. For example, I will say “Set alarm for 8:00 am” and it’ll just keep listening and listening. Anybody else have a similar problem?

1 Before I find your website, I’ve read some articles about this topic from other sites. There is a different ROM called jb-takju.zip Do you know what’s the difference between this one and the one you introduced?

2 For me, I don’t flash my phone for fun. So for these tricky stuffs, I only want to do them once. From your article you said, “If you are rooted, there’s usually rooted OTA custom ROMs you can flash in ClockworkMod Recovery (usually within 24 hours) of the update, which allows you to easily update to the OTA and keep root, settings, and apps.” Does this mean I cannot get the update notification in the notification center and do the update automatically and I can only update the ROM by flash in ClockworkMod Recovery once I rooted my phone? If so, are there any way to update the phone system like Winodws Update on PC? 🙂

Pretty much yes, if you want stock updates, you should really not root your phone, rooting is for people who want custom ROMs in general. Sorry to be brief but once rooted you probably don’t want OTA updates.

There are ways to install them though when major updates come out, I usually post the OTA with root so you don’t need to do the OTA updates in the first place.

I have a Verizon GNex running this ROM, and I tried tethering by going to Settings and then more but it asks me to subscribe to Verizon’s plan for tethering. I also tried many apps in the play store and none will let me tether, is there a something else I can do to tether without paying Verizon?

I haven’t been able to find an app to tether either…none of them actually work, including the “built-in” setting in Android, though I don’t get the message about needing to pay. I didn’t go find the exact app the guy pulls up in his youtube video, because I tried a couple that looked exactly like the one he was using. I’m on Sprint.

Hi Max, question for you, I have tried going to JB 4 times now, using 3 different ROMs. Each time the result is the same, works great for a week, but then if I power the phone down and power it back, it freezes on boot screen, and nothing I do can bring it back beside using Wuggs root kit to revert it back to stock. Reflashing does not work, restoring my backup does not work. This happened both with Prime Bootloader and Clockwork. Also before loading any ROM I wipe everything and restore all my apps manually. The other thing is while using JB I can Reboot the phone, or flash differnet things and that all works, it is only when I completely power down.

I have flashed the ROM successfully and am running 4.1.1 but for some reason I am missing nearly every application from my phone. No camera, no gallery, no navigation, any gapps, play store is nowhere to be found so I can’t download anything. I understand it is possible to install a g-apps zip to get those, but what about camera, gallery, navigation, etc.? Please help Max!

Hi Max,
Hope that you could show us how to flash google stock 4.2 and rooted just like what you did in this video. I could download stock google 4.2 rom but its not zip file like yours where i can easily goto recovery and flash it. Cheers.